Johannesburg Touts Smart Meter Deployment

Johannesburg Touts Smart Meter Deployment

The city of Johannesburg is nearly halfway through its planned smart meter deployment. The new devices were adopted in part to mitigate load shedding and reduce meter-reading cost. The city is scheduled to install 70 000 smart meters by June and a total of 150 000 by the end of September.

In a statement, city leaders stated: More than 60 000 smart meters, also known as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) units, have already been installed in areas where domestic customers consume 1 000 KWH and above a month.

The smart meters will be used to implement an innovative system that will notify consumers via text message to reduce power consumption at a particular time.

Johannesburg Mayor Parks Tau explains: It will be up to you to switch off those electrical appliances that you dont need. If you ignore the signal, your power will trip for 30 seconds and will switch on again. If you continue ignoring the warning signal, the power will switch off completely.

The power will remain switched off until the load shedding period has lapsed. According to The New Age newspaper, its estimated Johannesburg could save us much as 775MW if each of the 335 000 households with smart meters utilize the system.